The Cable

Many of my most bizarre radio stories come from my first real gig, working at a startup rocker housed in a doublewide trailer.

The trailer was connected to the transmitter via a cable that *I* laid down by unspooling out the back of our engineer's nasty old pickup as he drove through a quarter mile of land no pickup had any business driving through. Every now and then, while I was being lobbed around back there, the spool would snag and I'd nearly get launched.

"Whooooooaaaaaaa!!!!!" Thud.

The engineer would shout "Don't break the cable!!!"

Thanks for noticing I almost got thrown out the back of a truck pal... I digress.

Weeks later, I'm on the air. In the background I hear a curious sound coming from outside the trailer:

"VrrrrRRRrrrRRRrrrrrrrrRRRRrrrrr!!!!"

As soon as I realized what it was, I lunged for the door, but it was too late...

You know your career in broadcasting isn't going well when you're taken off the air by a kid with a lawnmower. It happened more than once.

The kid had a walkman, by the way. You can guess what he WASN'T listening to.